WET WET WET
(UK, seven Top 40 hits, three Top 40 albums)

THOUGHTFUL SCOTTISH schoolpal quartet who quickly moved from young pop larkabouts into adult soul top-earners and forced everyone to take them very, very seriously. Glasgow-born bassist Graeme Clark hooked up with classroom peers Tommy Cunningham (drums) and Neil Mitchell (keyboards) and started rehearsing old songs in his mother's kitchen, before recruiting fellow pupil Mark McLachlan, who was previously unknown to them but had been heard singing in the playground. McLachlan, later to become Marti Pellow, provided two crucial links: firstly, he got them from cult status as a live act into the money-spinning chart mainstream, and then took them from the mainstream into the discerning, slightly pompous and much more demanding adult audience. This was because he was in possession of a stirring, pitch-perfect and shivery voice which could cross all emotional and musical barriers, though clearly he needed the songs to do it, and his three cohorts had that musical ability to provide it, which marked them down pretty early on as a very tight quartet who all put their own invaluable worth into making themselves an appreciable success.  

BOUNCY

After signing to Phonogram and recording a heady session in Memphis, the band's debut single "Wishing I Was Lucky" ("he would swear by his mouth almighty") hit the charts, with instant intrigue gained over the unusual name, the charming, intelligent structure of the song (it dealt with the desperation of unemployment) and the phwooar factor of Pellow, who was a sex symbol overnight. It clambered up week on week until it peaked at No.6, with the follow-up "Sweet Little Mystery"  ("you're such a natural, sing 'cause that's what you are") going a place higher on much the same credentials, accompanied by a bouncy video set on some reclusive beach. A little furore was created over some sly lyric-nicking, with the album version surreptitiously altered as a result, before the gorgeous third single emerged in the form of "Angel Eyes (Home And Away)" ("the saddest thing I've ever seen on my TV screen was a dying man who died for his team") which put Pellow's voice on an unmatchable pedestal - here was a group who combined kiddy pop sensibilities with a beautiful, expressive vocal range. Legend has it that when Sinatra lent an ear to that song, he said it was the best pop song he had ever heard, though it too was prone to plagiarism accusations and was subjected to the rewriting process for the album. The fourth single "Temptation" ("show me one more sign, give me one more time") followed previous formulae, reaching a lazy No.12, and the album "Popped In Souled Out" was an obvious No.1 the moment it hit the shelves.  

 VALUES

Pellow's vitality was immeasurable - for as long as he kept melting the styli with his voice, Wet Wet Wet would continue to hold on to a role in the industry set much higher than the enjoyable but otherwise chuckaway pop which their songs generally represented, though even in that pigeonhole they were still at the upper end of the scale. The Memphis stuff was hastily put on an album and released to maintain interest (which it did) and the band who would almost from the start be idly re-christened the Wets got to No.1 with a version of "With A Little Help From My Friends" ("how do you feel by the end of the day, are you sad because you're on your own") for the benefit of Childline, with the equally billed flip-side by Billy Bragg hardly getting any airplay. The second studio album emerged in '89, and what an album it was. It cost a fortune, and you could tell, but while experimental with trumped-up production values and a journey into previously unchartered genres (jazz, soul, reggae, big band) it was absolutely fantastic. The first single was a ballad, the juttering "Sweet Surrender" ("I never wanted you to listen before, so why should I walk out the door") which effortlessly glided to No.6, followed into the Top 20 by the erotically-charged "Broke Away" ("took away all of those chains, and said they broke away"). "Holding Back The River" reached No.2 on the album charts, with the 90s arriving and two more singles being almost ignored into the lower reaches of the Top 40, due to the album already being in plenty of households.

HEROIN

From thereonin, the Wets had a mixed time. They did the big orchestral gigs at the Royal Albert Hall and, after a slight stutter with two floppy discs, got their second No.1 in the self-penned, unpercussioned "Goodnight Girl" in '92. By now, the teenagers had gone (and Pellow had ridiculously grown his hair) and those who screamed in '87 were now polite applauders instead, educating their own kids in the art of liking the Wets, which suited the band as they were becoming much more a late-night specialist soul act than considerable pop marketeers. A couple more albums followed, and the band famously got their third No.1 when Four Weddings And A Funeral theme "Love Is All Around" stayed there for fifteen whole weeks in '95, with only Pellow's frustrated insistence on deletion preventing it from equalling Bryan Adams' record sixteen week run in '91, though Reg Presley of the Troggs earned a few million as the song's writer to pursue his corncircle obsession slightly further than some maize meadow in Suffolk. Downhill from there - Cunningham was sacked as drummer and Pellow quit just before the tabloids revealed he had a serious heroin habit which nearly killed him, a tragic concept when reminiscing about the excitable young singer of wide grin and handsome looks who leapt on to the TOTP stage in '87. He is now in cold turkey and back onstage as a solo artist, while the other two maintain the name of Wet Wet Wet. That name will stand the test of time when the back catalogue is critically examined - four young Scotsmen (plus ubiquitous hanger-on guitarist Graeme Duffin) whose dream was to please the few while attracting the many, which is exactly what they did with no little style, finesse and skill while being armed to the teeth with a singer whose voice and looks was the envy of every imageless band going. They had it all, and that just about achieved it all, which proves that justice could sometimes be seen to be done.

Biggest Hit: "With A Little Help From My Friends", No.1, 1988
Defining Moment: The phenomenon that was and is Marti Pellow.

Matt